


Arched Against This City We Inhabit Like Guerrillas

by lady_krysis (saekhwa)



Series: Arched Against This City [1]
Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Canon - Comics, Canon - Movie, Canon Character of Color, Canon Het Relationship, Character Death, Character of Color, F/M, Female Anti-Hero, Female Character of Color, Female Protagonist, Het, Implied Relationships, Minor Character Death, Multi, Muslim Character, Noncanonical Character Death, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Revenge, Sexual Content, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:36:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saekhwa/pseuds/lady_krysis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Aisha could, she'd pull the whole world down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arched Against This City We Inhabit Like Guerrillas

**Author's Note:**

> This fic incorporates some comics canon (particularly for Aisha's characterization) but primarily follows movie canon events. Title is from a line in Dionne Brand's poem "Hard Against the Soul." Thanks so, so, so much to [](http://lunesque.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**lunesque**](http://lunesque.dreamwidth.org/) for the beta. She is utterly fabulous.

The trees are thick, the leaves and vines sticking to you as tenaciously as the mosquitoes. You cut through it all as easily as you cut through muscle and flesh. Your skin is dotted in the same way, the splatter of leaves and dead things sliding like sweat down your neck and hands. You know they can hear you.

They look lazy and bloated from the summer, but they are not fat with their kill. Two of them are broken and breaking. The slip and slide of skin and tendons realigning makes an obscene, wet sound in the clearing. You dart a look to your left when you hear a low, deep growl. You notice the bared teeth first, sharp and glistening bone, then the tawny fur, ears laid back, stance spread wide for a leap. You smile because you appreciate its warning. Your fingers are twitching to sink your blade into Clay's throat and drink from the gaping maw of his wound, but this wolf at the gate reminds you: wait.

So you turn your eyes back to the two nude things standing tall like men and offer a small nod. "Clay."

He seems so comfortable in his human skin. "How'd you find us?"

You shrug. "It wasn't hard. You leave an obvious trail."

Cougar, Clay, and Roque — one, two, three. Which means the other two — Jensen and Pooch — are circling around, are most likely behind you. You think you can hear them, their bodies shifting silently through the trees and their four-hundred and twenty-one teeth gnashing to tear and shear you apart. But you are not easy, not sick or old or weak. The silence is broken by a bird darting into the sky, its wings desperately flapping until it reaches the height of safety.

"What do you want?" Clay asks.

The smile cuts across your face in one neat slash. "The same thing you want." The enemy of my enemy, you think. "Max."

Clay's eyes narrow and his lips thin as if to bare his teeth; there is another growl to your left. You can't speak their language, but they can't speak yours either. The nod, however, is easily understood. After all, you will later tell him, _"There are worse monsters than you."_

~*~

You lay with Fahd in the dark, his breath cooling your neck and his fingers lazily dusting the sand from your sweat-slick skin. You can feel each broken piece of him pressed against your side, and you trace the ruts and craters of the parts of him you can reach, where the sand has gathered, where you both find a place to rest.

"What are they like?" he asks, his breath whistling between the gaps in his teeth, the Pashto stumbling from his swollen tongue.

You turn your head and kiss him, sinking deep until you find home in each cut and crevice torn by war, destroyed, and still beautiful. His moan does not sound like a growl.

"They're animals," you finally say, stroking the rut in his cheek where the bone has been shattered so many times that it can't remember its own design.

His mouth splits, and you touch your fingertips to the corner, tracing the shape of it until you understand it as the smile that it is. "So the dogs are brought to heel."

You shake your head and trail your fingers down his neck to his shoulder, finding every broken piece you can. He catches your hand when you reach his elbow, and he waits for an answer. There is nothing to break the silence, nothing that can break either of you.

"Give any dog a good bone ... ." You let the rest trail into the silence as you look into his eyes.

Your hand slips free of Fahd's grasp, and his face twists, his mouth splitting once more. He nods and presses closer as if imparting a secret. "And he will bury it."

~*~

Roque growls, the sound rumbling as deep as thunder, and his lip pulls back in a snarl. "She can't be trusted."

You lean back in the chair, cross your legs, and lift your chin. Your neck is long and your pulse beats hard and you smile. "We're after the same thing."

Max remains unspoken, but you catch it in everyone's faces — the way Jensen's eyes dart down and he bites his bottom lip, the way Pooch shakes his head, the way Cougar straightens, and the way Clay and Roque watch their pack for unidentifiable symbols beyond that.

"He slaughtered another team," you continue and pause long enough for Clay's eyes to meet yours across the room. "They were deployed to Azerbaijan to deal with hostilities." Roque shifts his weight to his left leg, his shoulder brushing Clay's, but Clay's eyes never leave your face. "Shortly after they reported mission successful, they encountered enemy fire." Each one of them is staring at you now. "Officially, they're classified as MIA. However, if one were to notice the inconsistencies in that report ... ."

It doesn't surprise you that Jensen is the first to speak, moving restlessly across the room to stare out the window. "Yeah, great bedtime story. We get it. Max is burying all of us, but out of the kindness of your heart, you're gonna help us avoid the leash and the backyard funeral."

"I'm not promising to save you." You find yourself looking at Clay when you say this. Your gun is so close that you can see the black dot in the middle of his forward, the bloom of his brains and blood splattering against the wall. You lower your eyes, pulling in a slow breath to still the thrum of your heart. "But I can give you a chance to strike back."

"You already lied to us once," Roque says. He spreads his stance, and you don't have to look up to know that he has a gun aimed at you even before you hear him chamber a round.

"You don't seem to understand the severity of the issue." You lift your eyes to him, but you are watching everyone else in the room. "I have the resources and the money to get you close enough to Max that you can hunt him down and take him out." You prop your arm on the back of the chair and nod toward Roque. "But go ahead. Shoot me."

He approaches until the barrel is pressed to your forehead, but he doesn't know that you slit the throat of giants when you were a little girl, that you survived bullets and bombs, that your first word was tank and it was synonymous with enemy and it could only be followed by kill or die. I have scars, you want to say, that run deeper than the dog gnawing at your insides. You grab his gun and shove it harder against your forehead, feeling your own lip curl into a snarl that you twist into a smile.

"Go for it." Each word is a soft, clipped stab punctuated by your hatred.

You wait.

And wait.

And dare.

No one thought these animals could be tamed, but Roque angles his gun until it's pointed at the ceiling. He shakes his head and huffs out a breath. Clay's hand curls around his shoulder, and he turns. They lean in, their noses pressed to each other's cheeks as if they're gathering each other's scent. Or marking each other. Their rituals are as much a mystery as your motivations are to them.

Roque breathes out and something unknowable passes between him and Clay. "She's going to kill you."

"But not today," you say.

~*~

You take Clay in like a bullet, hard and fast and with a smile that feels feral. He seems confused at first, but then he growls out his pleasure and rocks into you, each thrust making you gasp. The thrum — that desire to kill him — is still there beneath your skin. His blood would feel good on your hands. Infection isn't something you fear.

When you kiss him, it is with your teeth sunk deep into hot flesh and a sharp snap of your hips. He moans for it, his nails digging into your ass and dragging you down into another thrust. The knife is in your hand, its weight and girth more pleasurable than his cock and you're sure he can smell the metal as well as he smells the gun oil coating both of your fingers. You press the blade to his pulse, your orgasm shuddering through you.

He comes before the first fat drop wells up from his skin.

~*~

The smoke from the explosion curls up fat, bloated and dark, blacking out a blue sky. Your stomach is warm with blood, your hand slick from the pressure of fighting each pulse as the copper twang settles on the back of your tongue like an appetizer.

"You work with dogs, you're bound to get fleas." Max's mouth purses into a moue as he flicks a piece of dirt off his white suit. "Or in this case"—He looks at you and then at the wound as if he's been the first to put a bullet in your womb—"shot. Wade, prep the chopper."

Wade motions his gun, the barrel never wavering far from your head. "And them?"

Max darts a look at the sky and then stares at the back of Wade's head. "What do you think, Wade?"

Wade glances back. "Put 'em down?"

"Yes, put them down." Max shakes his head and then steps forward to look down at Clay who's still fighting against the chain leash wrapped around his throat. "Nothing personal, you understand, but this is for the good of the human race." Max steps back when Clay jumps, and Clay's jaws snap around air. "The _North American_ human race."

You do not think it's an accident that Max's eyes skim over you when he takes a step back and turns to make his escape. It's not an accident when you dart forward and bury your knife into the gut of the guard nearest you. Their hubris is their weakness, and you have learned that one weapon is never enough when they're building millions more. You jerk the blade up and twist until his blood splatters warm on your neck. You keep him as a shield while Cougar surges forward in a burst of fur and teeth and claws, and Pooch, with his broken human legs, grabs a rifle and shoots. Clay and his team rend flesh like you do: without mercy and as if starved.

But you aren't pack. You don't belong to them.

You're the first to break free and listen to the pattern of bullets behind you, the screams that stain the air in a country whose scars have been tucked and hidden and airbrushed until even it's tragedies are made cheap. And here, standing above it, the ocean stretched out behind him, reflecting a clear, blue sky, is Max.

You put a bullet in his knee before he can speak or raise his gloved hand in surrender or explanation. He falls to the ground, wide-eyed, chest heaving as he struggles to gather the tendons and bone. Unlike Clay and his team, he can't realign them. He can't break and become something new.

With a flick of your thumb, you switch the safety on. You slide the gun into the back of your pants and close the short distance between satisfaction and revenge.

"This is—"

"What it feels like to die," you whisper.

You sink your blade into his neck. It is as easy as killing the Soviet invaders, and Max has just as many lives to account for. He weakly clutches your shoulder with his gloved hand and shudders, his blood bubbling in a warm fount over your skin. He wears the same black glove as Clay, Roque, Cougar, Pooch and Jensen.

With one sharp twist of your blade, Max jerks. His hand falls. He bleeds for several long minutes.

You hear them panting behind you, these dogs who can wear human skin. You stand, and there's a certain relief in the stretch, like a cool trickle of water. When you turn and look at Clay, Roque pushes forward, teeth glistening and muzzle wet with blood, his black coat tacky with it.

You wipe your knife on the clean part of your shirt, across your breast and over your heart.

"Don't," Pooch says, an arm draped around Jensen's shoulder and his rifle aimed at you.

You stare at Clay, at the chain dangling from his throat, at the collar strung too tight.

Roque growls, and Pooch says, "Aisha," as if that is the sum of you.

You remember one of their stories, about a little girl caught in the woods. Her red hood always seemed like a metaphor for blood.

 _"Why didn't she kill the monster?" you'd asked your father._

 _"Sometimes we can't."_

You have enough bullets, one for each of them — Cougar with his faith, Jensen with his sister and niece, Pooch with his wife and a _child_ , Clay and Roque who only have each other.

This is a different story.

"Aish—"

"Too late," you say.

The bomb detonates, its fire flaring as bright and hot as the midday sun. You are already flying, but the sky is too far for your human arms.


End file.
